SPOILER-FREE REVIEW OF THE CRASH

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I've read a few Freida books, including The Inmate, The Locked Door and Never Lie, and I've noticed a few quirks with her writing at this point:

1. Her characters are all miserable. I mean, that's fine considering one of them is usually always a murderer and I'm not reading these types of books to gain a new book boyfriend, but it's still true. Also, kind of realistic to real life.

2. Sometimes her endings/twists are a little forced. I've learned that if there's a character that seemingly has no reason to be written into the story, they have something to do with the shocker at the end. This isn't always bad, just a little predictable.

3. She likes to make her main characters kind of stupid. That's usually how the MCs of thrillers get into their deadly predicaments, but sometimes it's a little frustrating.

That all being said, her books are always easy to read, decently paced, short and sweet and typically give a decent surprise ending.

The Crash was not necessarily an exception to these quirks, but I will say that this FMC was a bit more likeable than normal. If this read interests you, be sure to look up the specific trigger warnings (I'll list some here, too) to be sure that some of the heavy topics discussed in this book won't cause too much of an issue with your personal preferences.

(POSSIBLE SPOILER ZONE: TRIGGER WARNINGS): Pregnancy, infertility, miscarriage, sexual abuse, child abuse, drugging, kidnapping

SYNOPSIS (SPOILER-FREE)

Tegan is 8 months pregnant and ready to go visit her brother for a much needed reprieve from her crazy life, even if it means heading out in a blizzard. Tegan never makes it to her destination, crashing into a tree and suffering a broken ankle in a desolate part of her trip. She is relieved when a burly man rescues her from the wreckage, only to be scared

for her life when she's not delivered to the hospital, but to the man and his wife's basement. Though they assure Tegan that she will only be there long enough for the roads to clear, time continues to tick by and the uneasiness grows. Teagan realizes that her being there may be the end of her and her daughter, and to save them both she must do whatever it takes to escape.

MY THOUGHTS

As I mentioned above, this read had most of the quintessential FM traits - pretty miserable characters, a somewhat forced ending, and a pretty clueless MC. The protagonist, Tegan, was more likable than most of hers, but she still had her moments. The over-arching theme of this book was rash judgment, and if Tegan hadn't made assumptions of people based on their appearance and mannerisms, she probably would've made a lot smarter decisions. Tegan had undergone trauma, though, so it's hard to get too upset with her for the judgments she made.

As far as the plot goes, it was good. I enjoyed the suspense, but it did have a few moments of slow pacing that I felt could've been edited out - this book probably could've been about 100 pages shorter, but because I listened to it on audio, it didn't affect my reading experience too much. Here's a breakdown of some of the things I liked and disliked about this read:

LIKED:

• The twist was pretty good, one that I didn't start to predict until a little later in the book. Some avid thriller readers may have called this one from early on, but I didn't pin it down.

• The setting. The whole creepy basement thing was entertaining and provided a good backdrop for the suspense in this read.

• The rotating POVs. This aspect gave a better understanding to the true craziness that was Polly, and it also added big time to the frustration around how much Tegan blindly trusted her.

• The ending. For a thriller, the ending of this book was surprisingly wholesome in a weird, twisted way, and I appreciated that.

DISLIKED:

• The repetitiveness. While I understand that this is a tactic used to create suspense, it was overdone in some instances here (we get it, your ankle hurts).

• "Little Tuna." I did not find this little pet name endearing. It was annoying, and her baby talking to her in-utero was a little weird, too.

• Tegan kept trusting the wrong people. That got on my nerves. She had several opportunities to just communicate what was going on with her - or to just stop freaking out so much and assess the situation - and she didn't, which annoyed me.

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OVERVIEW

Overall, this was a good, solid 3-star psychological thriller, and I would expect nothing less of Freida McFadden. It was easy to consume, easy to follow, and entertaining. There was nothing special about the ending, and this isn't one I would give extra points to for a "shocker" of a twist, but I felt it gave enough drama to satisfy the average fan of suspenseful thrillers.

READ IF YOU LIKE...

• Adult kidnapping trope

• People are not as they seem

• Rotating POVs

• Short timeline with lots of suspense

• Unexpected endings